What? You aren’t up on your Harry Potter?! That’s ok, let me educate you a bit so that my title makes a bit more sense. You see in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the students are given an assignment that forces them to face their worst fears. Ron Weasley’s turns out to be spiders. Of course, later in the book Ron is met with (you guessed it) giant spiders! How does this play into my musings? Well, see if you can guess how I spent most of my time yesterday! ;)

On Raiding

We are currently working on our third Hard Mode encounter of this tier – Beth’tilac. Last night was our second night of work on the giant widow, and our first full night of attempts. After a few strategy changes from Thursday night, we managed to work her down to 22%, and are very close to a kill.

Of the hard modes that we’ve done so far, this is the one that I’ve found the healing to be the most intensive. I am assigned to heal one of the cave/broodling/spiderling DPS and it can definitely be a bit tricky, especially when Beth is spewing all over the raid. In addition to that, the raid damage in phase 3 is brutal. I find that my mana bar is plummeting and I am still working out how to manage it a bit more so that I have the resources to push through until the very end of phase 3. I have a few ideas, but won’t get to exercise them until we get back in there for some more attempts.

Considering that we’ve spent less than 40 progression attempts on her, I’m really happy with how we’ve come along. We have the adds mostly under control, our web DPS is pushing her below 80% before she comes down, and we are managing to keep people alive through the transitions when she spits on everyone. I think a few more solid attempts with this and we should have it. It would seem we have a functioning strategy. It’s just a matter of our DPS tweaking their phase 2 damage and our healers working through their mana so they can push it out to the end.

All in all, I find that I am really enjoying this fight.

On Dailys

All, I have a confession to make. I skipped my firelands dailys three days in a row. Yup. I just didn’t feel like doing them, and so I didn’t. Maybe I’ll regret it down the line, but I certainly am not regretting it now. In fact, I’m quite pleased with myself for identifying that I did not want to do them and stepping away. Oh, I’ll continue to chug through them until I’m done with everything and all of the achievements. But on days when I don’t feel like it? I’m ok saying “not today”.

On Alts

Our little one day a week, ragtag alt crew got two new bosses this weekend, which means we are now 5/7 with just Domo and Rag left. Which is kind of cool. It’s been fun seeing the fights from a Holy Paladin perspective, and Dannie is happily chugging along.

On Sunday my hands were feeling a little better, so I chanced playing a little more than I have lately and tinkered around on an alt for a couple of hours in the morning. I decided I would pull out my little goblin rogue and do some low level questing and had a complete blast. I know people joke about arcane mages being a “two button” class, but man, have these people ever played a rogue?! Maybe it’s just because I’m still so little and I don’t have all of my abilities – but I literally don’t mash more than buttons 1 and 2!

I also think that I may be ready to push another character from 80 to 85, and I think I’d like it to be my priest or my shaman, but can’t decide which one to do yet! Of course, I’d been playing very little outside of raids because of my hands, so this is all contingent on my feeling that I can spend more time at the keyboard. I actually think I’m leaning towards my shaman, even though my priest is already 81, just because I’d like to get a better understanding and feel for the class.

On Entertainment

I saw Harry Potter last week and Captain America this past weekend, and I throughly enjoyed both of them.

I thought they did very well with the final chapter in the Harry Potter series, and was impressed with how far the kids had come, not only in terms of their acting, but as people as well. I find myself infinitely glad that these films were shot in England/Scotland and far away from Hollywood. I think that choice is one of the main reasons that we’ve seen these kids remain largely grounded and not splashing the front page of every tabloid gracing the supermarket stands.

As for Captain America, it was a very fun film and I can’t wait for the Avengers to come out. Sadly, it doesn’t seem that the Hulk is going to be part of that mix – but my theory on that is that Marvel gave the big green two shots and both came up a bit short. And so the Hulk fails to be part of Team Avenger. That’s alright though, between Iron Man, Thor and Cpt. America, there is plenty of eye candy to be had. Oh, and I’m sure there will be some entertainment via plot and action sequences. But, uh, did I mention the eye candy?

Over on the small screen side of things, I’m still enjoying True Blood and The Glee Project.

While True Blood hasn’t remained completely true to the books, there is enough of them in there to keep the series familiar. I’ve been enjoying this season so far, so hopefully it continues to keep me engaged.

As for The Glee Project, I am sad to say that one of my favorites was not called back last night. Of course, Brade was all “Your contender is OUT!”. But that’s ok! It’s still an extremely enjoyable show, and I have other favorites remaining!

On the book front I’m still working my way through Game of Thrones. I have a fair bit of business travel coming up soon, which means I’ll have a lot of spare time for reading. I’m just about finished with the first book, and am quite excited about learning what happens next!

One response to “Monday Musings – Ron’s Bogart Edition”

Sounds like good things all around. I honestly wish that I had time to consistently be part of a 10 man alt raiding group but I just don’t have the time. Having a significant other that does not raid with me means that balancing my time is that much more tricky. Our guild raids three nights a week and I simply don’t want to to do any more than that because it feels like too much time distanced and playing by myself. This is not to say I don’t play other games, but when I’m messing around in another game (Oblivion, or Borderlands, or whatever the current game is) I can always pause to do something and return so it doesn’t feel quite the same. Wish you the best of luck on your main and alt and I’m hoping my resto shammy can get some more airtime soon.

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